Fostering digital representation of EU regional and minority languages: the Digital Language Diversity Project

Fostering digital representation of EU regional and minority languages: the Digital Language Diversity Project Claudia Soriaa, Irene Russoa, Valeria Quochia, Davyth Hicksb, Antton Gurrutxagac, Anneli Sarhimaad, Matti Tuomistoe aIstituto di Linguistica Computazionale “A. Zampolli”, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy bEuropean Language Equality Network, France cElhuyar Fundazioa, Spain dJohannes Gutenberg Universit¨at Mainz - Forschungs - und Lehrbereich Sprachen Nordeuropas und des Baltikums, Germany eKarjalan Kielen Seura, Finland Abstract Poor digital representation of minority languages further prevents their usability on digital media and devices. The Digital Language Diversity Project, a three-year project funded under the Erasmus+ programme, aims at addressing the problem of low digital repre- sentation of EU regional and minority languages by giving their speakers the intellectual an practical skills to create, share, and reuse online digital content. Availability of digital content and technical support to use it are essential prerequisites for the development of language-based digital applications, which in turn can boost digital usage of these languages. In this paper we introduce the project, its aims, objectives and current activities for sustaining digital usability of minority languages through adult education. Keywords: Less-resourced languages, Language Technology, digital language vitality, digital language diversity 1. The ‘low digital representation’ problem Europe’s regional and minority languages (RMLs) are poorly represented digitally (Rehm et al., 2014), (LT- Innovate.eu, 2013). A number of factors can be invoked to explain it. One is the low profile enjoyed by many regional and minority lan- guages, which often are not officially recognised and rarely fully supported (as it is the case of the totality of the re- gional languages of France, for instance). Low prestige and a weak socio-political profile make it so that speakers turn to other languages when accessing the digital world. The presence of RMLs over digital media and their usabi- lity through digital devices is usually limited to instances of digital activism and/or by means of cultural initiatives fo- cused on the preservation of cultural heritage. Another reason is the fact that virtually no European citizen is monolingual in a regional or minority language: every- one can always make use of an official EU language instead of a minority one, thus making EU regional and minority languages not essential for communication purposes. This makes EU RMLs of little economic interest for companies developing language-based digital applications, since vir- tually no prospective customer would be unable to commu- nicate if these languages were not supported. As a conse- quence, provision of state-of-the-art language-based appli- cations, which would enable and foster their use over digi- tal media and devices, is severely limited (Mariani, 2015). In addition, for a language to be used digitally, it has to be “digitally ready”, i.e. it must enjoy the range of tools and technical support available for other major languages. This is not always the case, see for instance the recent bat- tle for the adoption of a keyboard better supporting French regional languages1. The majority of EU RMLs is affected 1http://www.afnor.org/liste-des- actualites/actualites/2015/novembre-2015/respect-de-l-ecriture- francaise-vers-un-nouveau-modele-de-clavier-informatique by the problem of weak technological support, …

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